How to disable Perfwatson2.exe from Visual Studio 2019

Question

How do I disable Perfwatson in VS 2019? Perfwatson is not disabled by Tools > Extensions and Updates > Developer Analytics Tools.

Answer 1

You can do it via the registry. For a 64 bit OS, the key is at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VSCommon\15.0\SQM 

And for a 32 bit OS, at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VSCommon\15.0\SQM 

For Group Policy management (settings from IT department), it's

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SQM

The key name is OptIn (a DWORD), and you need to set it to 0 to disable.

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/visual-studio-experience-improvement-program

To set it automatically

(On a 64 bit OS machine not managed by a group policy), fire up an admin command prompt and just

REG ADD HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VSCommon\15.0\SQM  /v OptIn /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

You may have to close and restart all visual studio related processes (or reboot) for the change to bite.

Answer 2

1. From the help menu, select Send Feedback > Settings.
2. In the Visual Studio Experience Improvement Program dialog, select No, I would not like to participate.

See the next answer to disable it from the registry.